


Singularly Angry

by FannibalToast



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Blossoming Hannigram, Canon Compliant, Empathy, Falling into darkness, Gen, Mentions of Murder, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 13:43:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21016730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FannibalToast/pseuds/FannibalToast
Summary: He lost the edges.That’s what kept Will awake, his dogs warm and snoring around him. Finally home, his guilt heavier now since his release from the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He watched the night deepen through his window; he didn’t need to see it shift to know what lurked in that velvet darkness. He was one of the monsters now.He became one of them when he slipped on his second skin.





	Singularly Angry

**Author's Note:**

> Happy spooky season, lovelies! As I finish up my edits for the next chapter of Merit, I figured I'd post this little fic that was born from a writing exercise and Some Feelings. I don't know if I'll ever really be over Beverly's death. I wonder a lot just how Will was able to forgive Hannibal, and this was a way to get it out of my head for a bit. Happy (sad?) reading!

* * *

_ “Beverly died at your behest. You are as angry with yourself as you are with whoever murdered her.” _

_ “Actually, I am singularly angry with whoever murdered her.” _

He lost the edges. 

That’s what kept Will awake, his dogs warm and snoring around him. Finally home, his guilt heavier now since his release from the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. He watched the night deepen through his window; he didn’t need to see it shift to know what lurked in that velvet darkness. He was one of the monsters now. 

He became one of them when he slipped on his second skin. 

The skin he needed to wear to catch Hannibal. To entrap him. To make him pay for what he’d done to Beverly, to Will himself. He’d pulled it up over his shoulders, tensing at the warmth. He’d taken a breath as he pulled it over his head, let it settle over his face. It tightened around him like a mould, holding him in place so he could better perform his role. So his shattered psyche could heal. But into what shape? Whose design?

This skin let him kill and mutilate Randall Tier. It steadied his hands. Through the eye holes, Will saw Randall’s face blur into Hannibal’s, had watched himself beat and maim and twist until the shadow of Hannibal went still and silent. Finally silent. 

But now, he was unable to peel back the edges. Now, alone in the dark, he couldn’t find the definitive, jagged lip that was purely his own. There was only a peculiar smoothness around the boundaries of his mind. The second skin was his own, now. 

Will twisted onto his side, back turned towards the darkness._ I’ve betrayed Beverly _, he thought. 

He’d put the skin on for her, hadn’t he? He donned it in front of Matthew Brown, a strip-tease in reverse, using Matthew as his agency in the world. A chalice for vengeance, the void through which Will would drain Hannibal out of this world, a bloodletting to release the poison festering inside him. Will didn’t need to lay his hands on Hannibal to kill him; he merely needed to voice his intention. 

Or so he had convinced himself. It was for Beverly, he rationalized. He would endure, not enjoy. Will was merely the live bait, wriggling on this hook for her. To avenge her. To make Hannibal pay for what he’d done. Will's rage and his grief were twin pillars of fire, turning his world to salt and ash. He’d slipped into this skin to make peace with that heat, even to protect himself from it. 

But Will found that heat growing dimmer now, and it shamed him. Beverly’s death was blasphemous, a blight on the world. 

But couldn’t it also be beautiful? Was a blasphemy born of necessity as ugly as discourtesy? What did Hannibal do, but honor her in the only way he knew how? 

Will threw himself back to center, kicking off the blankets and heaving a sigh toward the ceiling. _ You’re making excuses for him _ , he scolded himself. _ Hannibal doesn’t understand honor. He only understands self preservation. _

Then why did Randall Tier feel different? What made him different from Matthew Brown? Or even Garrett Jacob Hobbs?

_ Because I understand, now. The intimacy of it. The desire to change something. To elevate something as base and inelegant as death into something beautiful and meaningful, something that still breathes. _

Will hadn’t just killed Randall Tier. He’d allowed him to unfold, to blossom into something radiant. Something with teeth. And yet, it stemmed from a death of necessity. 

Hannibal used every part of Beverly. He perverted her profession, put her on display. He’d cut her, posed her, made her into _ his _image so she could no longer be her own. 

As Will had done to Randall. Randall’s becoming was subject to Will’s interpretation. His final pose was designed through Will’s own lens, by Will’s translation of what it meant to be honored. 

Could Hannibal have done the same to Beverly? Was her posing so offensive to him because it was Hannibal’s translation of honor?

_ Then what would I have done? How would I have honored her? _

Will closed his eyes. He cared for Beverly. He didn’t care for Randall. It made posing Randall less personal, but easier. He’d posed Randall for Hannibal’s benefit. As Hannibal has posed Beverly for his. 

_ The honor was for me. It was never meant for Beverly. _

She was posed to trigger just this response; to ignite that flame of rage. She was made into the evidence she so carefully examined. Her posing was harsh, garish. 

_ But her death was clean. Hannibal strangled her, forced the life out of her with his hands. _

Unlike what Will had done to Randall. He’d made Randall bleed, had made him feel fear.

Hannibal did that to Beverly. She was afraid when she died. How was Will any different from Hannibal now? Where was the honor in this?

Around and around, Will chased his tail around the thought. He watched the darkness outside gradually slope into a cool grey. He tried to justify it. Tried to rationalize it. He tried to understand how Hannibal could have honored Beverly. 

It was then, he realized, that his train of thought had shifted. It wasn’t about Beverly anymore, was it? It was about Hannibal. It was about justifying Hannibal, empathizing with him. 

And Will understood all at once that his loyalty had shifted, and slipped into grey as easily as the light outside his window. 

He wasn’t trying to find justice for Beverly. He was trying to understand Hannibal. 

The edges of his second skin were gone, faded to nothing as the shadows of the night receded. Only Will was left, wrapped in the truth of this new form, and all the consequences it brought with it. 


End file.
